Introduction of a short writing task to measure and develop academic literacy in first year health undergraduates

This paper describes an initiative in the Faculty of Health at the Queensland University of Technology, Australia, where a short writing task was introduced to first year undergraduates in four courses including Public Health, Nursing, Social Work and Human Services, and Human Movement Studies. Over 1,000 students were involved in the trial. The task was assessed using an adaptation of the MASUS Procedure (Measuring the Academic Skills of University Students) (Webb & Bonanno, 1994). Feedback to the students including MASUS scores then enabled students to be directed to developmental workshops targeting their academic literacy needs. Students who achieved below the benchmark score were required to attend academic writing workshops in order to obtain the same summative 10% that was obtained by those who had achieved above the benchmark score. The trial was very informative, in terms of determining task appropriateness and timing, student feedback, student use of support, and student perceptions of the task and follow-up workshops. What we learned from the trial will be presented with a view to further refinement of this initiative.

The Patches program : supporting the development of Malaysian pre-service teachers' academic literacy

The Patches program involves Malaysian pre-service teachers working closely with Australian pre-service teachers on a series of academic and intercultural communication tasks. A recurring problem for international students is the challenge to develop social relationships with Australian students. Similarly, it is often difficult for Australian students to step outside their accustomed social worlds to establish relationships with international students. The Patches Program supported rich cross-cultural social and academic exchanges among the students facilitating the development of students' academic literacy skills, their knowledge of self and knowledge of learning, and their skills in cross-cultural communication.

Literacy in Early Childhood and Primary Education : Issues, Challenges and Solutions

Literacy in Early Childhood and Primary Education provides a comprehensive introduction to literacy teaching and learning. The book explores the continuum of literacy learning and children’s transitions from early childhood settings to junior primary classrooms, and then to senior primary and beyond. Reader-friendly and accessible, this book equips pre-service teachers with the theoretical underpinnings and practical strategies and skills needed to teach literacy. It places the ‘reading wars’ firmly in the past as it examines contemporary research and practices. The book covers important topics such as literacy acquisition, family literacies and multiliteracies, foundation skills for literacy learning, reading difficulties, assessment, and supporting diverse literacy learners in early childhood and primary classrooms. It also addresses some of the challenges that teachers may face in the classroom and provides solutions to these. Each chapter includes learning objectives, reflective questions and definitions to key terms to engage and assist readers. Further resources are also available at www.cambridge.edu.au/academic/literacy. Written by an expert author team and featuring real-world examples from literacy teachers and learners. Literacy in Early Childhood and Primary Education will help pre-service teachers feel confident teaching literacy to diverse age groups and abilities.

Literacy and numeracy project: Final report 2009

Literacy and numeracy are critical for young people during and after their schooling. The subjects and courses that students undertake during their school years incorporate a range of academic literacy and numeracy practices which students must be able manage if they are to be successful. Pathways beyond schooling also require specific, and changing, understandings of, and proficiencies with, literacy and numeracy as new communication technologies increasingly impact on further study, work, and everyday life. Teaching and learning numeracy is a new emphasis in the SACE and as yet we have little understanding about the ways in which secondary schools handle this area. Students in Years 10 and 11 are at a crucial point in their educational and life pathways as they begin to refine their future aspirations. For those who have difficulty with academic literacies and numeracies – and often a long history of such problems – this period can be fraught unless teachers are able to provide specific support when it is needed, or students are able to access it from care-givers or community members. The School to Work Literacy and Numeracy Project involved teachers from nine schools across the three sectors and university researchers working together to design curriculum interventions for students with a history of low measurable achievement in literacy and/or numeracy. The project started from the premise that working with ‘rich tasks’, an approach to learning and assessment developed in the Productive Pedagogies work undertaken in Queensland (Hayes et al., 2006), would improve students’ motivation, engagement and learning and that this work could best be done by teachers working in school-based, cross-curriculum teams with a school leadership team member and a university researcher as mentor. A key idea in designing rich tasks is that students will have opportunities to demonstrate their learning in assessments which are aligned with the learning expectations (for example a film festival to publicly launch student-produced films, advertising to sell student-made cubby-houses, a household budget based on students’ likely incomes in future work). In other words the assessments should be designed to allow for authentic communication and displays of what the students have learned through serious engagement with the curriculum. The project was conducted from Term 1-4 2009, with follow-up checks with some project teachers in the early weeks of 2010.

Education and literacy. 'Educación y alfabetización'.

Resumen tomado de la publicación.Monográfico : las condiciones de aprendizaje de la lengua escrita

Integrated literacies : every online player wins a prize

QUT Library’s model of learning support brings together academic literacy (study skills) and information literacy (research skills). The blended portfolio enables holistic planning and development, seamless services, connected learning resources and more authentic curriculum-embedded education. The model reinforces the Library’s strategic focus on learning service innovation and active engagement in teaching and learning. ----- ----- ----- The online learning strategy is a critical component of the broader literacies framework. This strategy unifies new and existing online resources (e.g.: Pilot, QUT cite|write and IFN001|AIRS Online) to augment learner capability. Across the suite, prudent application of emerging technologies with visual communications and learning design delivers a wide range of adaptive study tools. Separately and together, these resources meet the learning needs and styles of a diverse cohort providing positive and individual learning opportunities. Deliberate articulation with strategic directions regarding First Year Experience, assessment, retention and curriculum alignment assures that the Library’s initiatives move in step with institutional objectives relating to enhancing the student experience and flexible blended learning. ----- ----- ----- The release of Studywell in 2010 emphasises the continuing commitment to blended literacy education. Targeting undergraduate learners (particularly 1st year/transition), this online environment provides 24/7 access to practical study and research tools. Studywell’s design and application of technology creates a “discovery infrastructure” [1] which facilitates greater self-directed learning and interaction with content. ----- ----- ----- This paper presents QUT Library’s online learning strategy within the context of the parent “integrated literacies” framework. Highlighting the key online learning resources, the paper describes the inter-relationships between those resources to develop complementary literacies. The paper details broad aspects of the overarching learning and study support framework as well as the online strategy, including strategic positioning, quality and evaluation processes, maintenance, development, implementation, and client engagement and satisfaction with the learning resources.

O latim, uma língua morta?: uma metáfora em análise: o olhar da lingüística aplicada e suas implicações para o ensino

The focus of this research is the teaching of the Latin language. Due to the fact that its teaching has been facing a growing crisis in the last four decades, which currently persists, we ponder about external and internal causes of its decline, aiming at pointing out an alternative that enable us to find a way out of this situation. So, our research questions mainly concern how the teaching of Latin is viewed amongst the academic society, also investigating if it has kept up with the development of the scientific reflection about human language and the new approaches on language teaching. Furthermore, we analyse the contribution that the study of Latin can provide to the academic formation of language teachers and try to identify the areas of knowledge that can contribute to a reshaping of its teaching. Based on these guidelines, we have established as the goals of this research: 1) to reflect about the current situation of the teaching of Latin and the causes of its decline; 2) to determine its social representation among teachers and students of the Language Courses, as a way of defining the role it fulfills in the academic formation of teachers; 3) to accomplish an exploratory study of some handbooks that show alternative proposals on how to teach Latin, in order to detect their adequacy to current times and to the goals of the academic study of languages; 4) to offer an alternative proposal on how to teach Latin that takes into account the principles of Applied Linguistics, considering the socio-historical and cultural aspects of the language, enabling it to meet the requirements set by modern times. This research is divided into two parts. The first part presents the theoretical framework. We map the studies about Latin teaching inside and outside Brazil and argue against the concept of Latin being a dead language, presenting arguments set on changing this view. Then we describe and comment the notions of literacy, genre and culture, which helped us understand the reasons for the decline of the teaching of Latin and to point out suitable ways to overcome the crisis. The second part is dedicated to reflecting on the literacy practices in Latin teaching. We began by examining the answers to the questionnaires given to students and teachers about the view of Latin in the Language Courses; then we reflect on the teaching-learning of Latin as an academic literacy practice followed by an analysis of the didactic material used in teaching Latin. Finally, we suggest an approach of the familiar letter genre in ancient Rome as a means of teaching Latin in a contextualized way

Narrativas de professores em formação sobre a didatização de podcasts para o ensino de inglês na floresta

Considering the following conditions: (1) the fluency demands of students in an undergraduate program in Languages and Literatures/English in the Amazon region; (2) the listening and speaking needs of pre-service teachers of English as a Foreign Language (EFL); (3) my continuing education as a professor of EFL and my academic literacy as a teacher-researcher and pre-service-teacher trainer, this study, which is based on Narrative Inquiry, reports on a teacher experience of working didactically with oral genres through podcasting an activity that emerged with the advent of Information and Communication Technology (ICT). Through this process, I engage with some theorists who promote teaching as a process that is driven by a concept of language as social practice. Subsequently, I make use of the notions of context of culture and context of situation, derived from Systemic Functional Linguistics, as well as the concept of genre and register derived from the perspective of this theory. Based on these principles and beliefs, the Amazon region constitutes the register (situation) of the genres used in this study. These principles also provide, opportunities for building learning strategies appropriate to this local context, and also to teach listening and speaking skills from a task-based approach. During the experience, based on the reflective teacher-education model, the participants produced narratives about the process, which I then analyzed according to Ely, Vinz, Downing and Anzul (2001), who propose possibilities of composing meanings in Narrative Inquiry. Based on this perspective, I discuss the following topics, which were highly emphasized in the participants narratives: the lack of didactic activities using oral genres; the relevance of context within teacher education; and collaborative work as a strategy to overcome gaps in digital literacy, language fluency and teaching skills. The meanings I thereby compose point to a paradigm shift in English language teaching within this context. I also argue for a pedagogical practice that is engaged with historical and socio-cultural issues, and with the development of language skills, also one that promotes the implementation of ICTs at the very start of teacher training programs, adopting teaching and learning strategies that correspond to the demands of fluency in this particular context, and deficiencies imposed by geographical isolation

Práticas de leitura e escrita em contexto acadêmico: relações (hiper)textuais singulares

The present article aims at reflecting about the discursive practices of writing and reading on the net, more specifically about the writing and reading methods used by the undergraduate and graduated teachers, based on an internet search engine. It’s of interest to investigate: i) the (hyper) textual relations established in the context thought as permitted by the electronic resources; ii) the discursive marks that arise (are arisen) in a singular way of reading (and/or writing). The set of material was produced during a university extension course about reading and cyberspace, whose context consisted of a drawing production of the reading process on an internet search engine, on the basis of the signifier “apple”. Based on the French Discourse Analysis and assumptions from the New Literacy Studies, we intended to discuss the operating procedures of the internet search and the effects of meanings produced by the subject during his/her reading/writing process.

O letramento acadêmico em inglês: dificuldades na confecção da seção introdução de artigos acadêmicos

Este trabalho discute as dificuldades de um pós-graduando da área de energia na confecção da introdução de um artigo acadêmico em inglês. Duas versões do texto foram analisadas (uma após a instrução e outra após a conferência com a instrutora), comparando-as com os modelos de introdução de Swales (2004) e de Samraj (2002) ensinados no curso. O aluno apresentou os seguintes problemas: a narração como modo de organização retórica do texto, a ausência do movimento 2 dos modelos, uma escolha inadequada de léxico. A combinação desses elementos impediu que o texto apresentasse o valor cultural do gênero textual artigo acadêmico - a autopromoção. Os dados suscitam questionamentos sobre os limites da descrição empírica dos gêneros textuais e de seu ensino.

La evaluación de la competencia comunicativa específica en el ámbito de la ingeniería y la arquitectura

La progresiva internacionalización de las universidades españolas convierte a estas organizaciones en escenarios plurilingües. El español convive en ellos con otras lenguas, en especial el inglés, como vehículo de acceso y transmisión de conocimiento especializado. Esto requiere un proceso de alfabetización académica en lengua extranjera que tendrían que asumir las universidades de acogida, con objeto de preservar a los alumnos de los fracasos en los programas internacionales. Por el momento, en España, los programas de grado o de posgrado no establecen filtros con umbrales lingüísticos mínimos de acceso, a excepción de algunas universidades que se limitan a requerir certificados de grado de dominio del español general. No existen exámenes públicos de ingreso, o exámenes propios de postadmisión, que evalúen la habilidad lingüística comunicativa en contextos académicos. En este trabajo, se parte de la hipótesis de que los exámenes que certifican un grado de dominio de español general no sirven al propósito de discriminar a los alumnos capaces de seguir con éxito los programas de las universidades. Para verificarla, se desarrolla una prueba de examen específica que mida la capacidad de emplear el español en contextos académicos. La prueba se centra en las tareas que se revelan, en una primera fase exploratoria de la investigación, como más necesarias en lo que se refiere al uso del español como lengua vehicular: las clases magistrales. Una vez pilotada, se administró junto con otras destinadas a evaluar el grado de dominio de la lengua en contextos generales. Los resultados obtenidos del contraste de estas mediciones y de diversos análisis de los datos arrojan evidencias de que este tipo de prueba mide un constructo específico: la habilidad de uso del español en contextos académicos. ABSTRACT The progressive internationalization of Spanish universities has transformed these organizations into plurilingual scenarios. Spanish lives in them sharing the stage with other languages, especially English, as a means of access and transmission of expert knowledge. This requires a process of academic literacy in foreign language that host universities should assume, in order to safeguard students from failures in international programs. At the moment, in Spain, undergraduate or graduate programs do not set filters with minimum language requirements to gain access, except for some universities that merely require certificates of general Spanish. There are no Spanish language public admission exams, or post-enrollment tests of their own, to assess the communicative language ability of foreign students in academic contexts. In this dissertation, we start from the hypothesis that those tests that certify the student degree of mastery of the Spanish language do not serve the purpose of discriminating against students capable of successfully pursuing university programs. To prove it, a specific test that measures the ability to use Spanish in academic contexts was developed. This language test focused on the tasks associated with the most common genre, which revealed prominent in a first exploratory phase of the investigation, related to the use of Spanish as a means of instruction: university lectures. Once piloted, the test was administered along with others designed to assess the degree of mastery of the language in general contexts. Contrast results of these measurements and various analyzes of the data showed evidence that this type of test measures a specific construct: the ability to use Spanish in academic contexts.

El texto académico como género discursivo y su enseñanza en la educación terciaria

Se presentan algunas puntualizaciones sobre el texto académico entendido como comunicación que refleja el avance del conocimiento en relación con una determinada disciplina, enmarcado en la noción bajtiniana de género discursivo. A partir de ello planteo algunos de sus rasgos caracterizadores en sentido amplio, vale decir, independientemente del área del conocimiento en que se haya producido el texto. Luego se proponen algunas reflexiones respecto de la enseñanza de la lectura y la producción de textos de este tipo en el nivel terciario atendiendo a su valor epistémico, y destacando la responsabilidad de los docentes y de la universidad sobre la atención al tema en la formación de los estudiantes.